Eunice Hunton Carter (1899-1970) was a pioneering attorney and the intellectual architect of the case that brought down one of the United States’ most powerful mobsters. The granddaughter of an enslaved man and the daughter of two civil-rights activists, Carter earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Smith College before becoming one of the first Black women to graduate from Fordham Law School in 1932. She made history again when she became the first Black woman district attorney in New York State. In 1935, she was the only woman and the only person of color appointed to Special Prosecutor Thomas Dewey’s “Twenty Against the Underworld” task force, a team assembled to combat organized crime in New York. Initially assigned to the Women’s Court, Carter noticed that arrested sex workers were consistently represented by the same lawyers and bondsmen, leading her to theorize that sex work was a highly organized, centrally controlled racket. Despite Dewey’s initial focus on more conventional mob enterprises, Carter’s meticulous work eventually convinced him of the vital relevance of compulsory sex work in the mobsters’ operation. As depicted in the novel, Carter’s efforts were instrumental in the orchestration of the massive raids that yielded the witnesses needed to connect the industry to crime boss Lucky Luciano. His subsequent conviction is considered “the most successful court action against organized crime in U.S. history” (“Eunice Carter: Key Player in Luciano Conviction.” The Mob Museum, 6 Oct. 2016). After the landmark trial, Carter remained in the District Attorney’s Office until 1945, when she became a private attorney. Carter championed her communities all her life, advising the United Nations on issues regarding women’s rights and working with the National Council of Negro Women and the YWCA until her death in 1970.